Wednesday, July 10, 2013

What!The title says “A
Tip For Shooting Sports” and today’s image is a couple of flowers.Trust me, it’s only there to illustrate a
point.Doris has her pet orchid.She tends that little plant zealously.She has a special place it has to sit.It’s sort of like Sheldon (The Big Bang
Theory – US television) explaining why he has a designated place to sit on the
couch.Just the right amount of sunlight
(we’re back to discussing the orchid), not so much as to overheat the plant but
enough so it can thrive.At the right
height and distance from the window to maximize the rays. A slight breeze from walking into and out of
the bedroom.A reasonably constant
temperature in all seasons.Just the
ideal (or as close as you can get in our house) spot for its needs.I stole the sucker.I wanted to play with an 85mm macro.Only problem was the tripod was in the trunk
of Doris’ car.Oops!Oh well. Shoot hand held and see what happens.One thing that comes to mind is that the
depth of field is going to be severely limited due to the large aperture needed
to let in enough light.To see how these
flowers relate to sports photography, hit the “Read More”.

You can see that the image on the left is considerably
sharper than the one on the right.Both
were shot Aperture preferred at F8.The
image on the right is at 1/30th of a second.The left shot was taken at 1/500th
of a second.There a little difference
in the distance from the lens between the two, but not enough to make a four
stop (1/60, 1/125, 1/250, 1/500) difference in exposure.

Every time I shoot a local high school game I see parents blissfully
snapping away.Because outdoor school sports
are fall, winter and spring activities we usually run into fading light
situations.So, snap, snap, snap equals
blur, blur, blur.Almost all of the
parents never touch the settings on the cameras.As a result, the ISO is typically at 100 or
200.The shutter speeds range around
1/60th or maybe 1/125th of a second.Really tough to hand hold when a person is
braced properly and is firing some sort of a cannon (a 200mm, 300mm or 400mm
lens).(That’s cannon, not Canon.)

If your camera has it as an option, let the ISO float.The way to freeze the action when shooting sports
is to make sure the shutter speed is up there.About 1/500th or 1/1000th second does the
trick.By letting the ISO float you can
pick up those four stops in speed.Normal
for a Nikon ISO is 200.Four stops
greater would be and ISO of 3200.(400,
800, 1600, 3200)Most cameras today can
handle an ISO of 3200 without creating too much noise (grain in film camera
parlance).

Today’s image wasn’t even taken with a camera noted for low
noise.It was taken with a Nikon
D300.A model just before the in camera
noise reduction was improved.The noise
was minimized in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.

So, if it’s available, and you’re shooting sports, let the
ISO float.You’ll find it in the Menu
system of your camera.Just another way
to use your camera more fully.

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